JE Sawyer, one of the BIS guys who designed IWD2, was seen lurking in this thread on the BIS Forum where the discussion is about the multiplayer aspect of the game. Here's part of what he had to say on the subject:

To me, the multiplayer component of IWD and IWD2 seemed to take the potential fun of the game, and then subtract a volume of fun equal to lag and the idiocy of other players.

"OMG DUDE [PAUSE] I CANT FIND MY SLEEP SPELL!1!11! OK GOT IT GO."

*five seconds pass*
*creatures hop around the screen like Nightcrawler*